How Will You Protect Your Industry…Your Brand?

I read an article today from Sanjeev Patel, from Aura Wellness Center on “The Problem with Teaching Yoga Fitness Classes”. Now stay with me on this post, it will relate to marketing…

Sanjeev highlights how yoga has changed in North America, due in part for the “need for speed” attitude that is mainstream in North America. He notes that instead of yoga being about mindfulness, it is changing to meet the needs of people who expect results – pronto. Sanjeev asks the question to yoga instructors, “Which way will you go?”

This got me thinking, can a single yoga instructor solve this problem? Or, should the yoga industry take back the word yoga? How do we solve this problem?

Entering A New Market

It’s the nature of North America, in particular for the US. That when we see something that hasn’t been proliferated, we take it, own it and try to make money out of it, even if this means we blend yoga with Zumba and call it Yoga Intense, Power Yoga or Yoga Dance… you get the idea.

However, entering a new market, in any market does mean that your product, image, style and/or ingredients will change. It has too. However, for some products that’s called proper market entry. For others, like yoga, results in liquefying the product to the point that it maybe… unrecognizable.

Single Distribution Versus Grass Roots

The main problem is that we keep calling these exercises Yoga when it fact these are not yoga at all. Because yoga took a long time to become main stream and as a result the slow, grass movement created a fragmented market, making it hard to control ‘true yoga’.

Whereas, a product that is exported via a single distribution does help to protect your brand. Let’s take Apple, their products are primarily sold via their retail shops, their website and select distribution channels, creating better control over their brand.

Note: The “yoga” product is harder to control since it is not a physical product, then we have the increase in Yoga Teaching Centers in North America, all adding to this challenge. But there is a way…keep on reading.

Trade Mark or Brand the Industry or Product

While we all hope to have this problem, a brand that is too popular to control, this does present a second problem – an industry or product that becomes diluted due to its popularity. The industry or product is being crushed or in business terms, cannibalized by its own financial success.

This presents an opportunity… trade mark yoga, making all the others irrelevant.

Take the case study of Parmigiano-Reggiano – the greatest cheese in the world, by the way.

But I digress.

Many years ago, Parmigiano became very popular, to the point where we even had Kraft Parmigiano Cheese in a shaker tube, sold on the shelf. It wasn’t even required to be put in the fridge!! And, yet they got away with selling it as ‘Parmigiano’. Now you know you have a brand problem when Kraft is selling ethnic foods as ethnic and people believing it’s the same product as the imported Parmigiano-Reggiano.

What did Italy do?

They trade marked, branded and added the word, “Reggiano” to their product. Today, if you buy any other Parmigiano without having it state, Parmigiano-Reggiano, it is not Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Yoga associations or perhaps India, should do the same thing. Brand Yoga with Yoga-Saraswati or something like that.

Staying Consistent

We all need to make money. Now that’s out of the way, let’s take a step back and look at all the recent popular online promotional programs, specifically those list building programs. I’m all in favour in building your email list but not at the expense of selling your brand or expertise.

This is the same for yoga teachers, who want to increase the number of students and as a result, we blend and create a new yoga class to hopefully attract the people who like to beat themselves silly to get fit and hopefully will find Power Yoga really interesting.

I think the question that should be asked is, “How will you protect your industry?”

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I am a marketing communications specialist, strategist, problem solver and founder of The Marketing Boutique. Services also include competitive analysis, public relations, content marketing to help companies reach their business goals.